Motorola will ship its eagerly awaited second-generation Windows Mobile 2003 smart phone, the MPx220, in the UK in December, The Register has learned.

Sources close to the company this week revealed that the handset, which began shipping in the US earlier this month, will almost certainly make it to market here ahead of Christmas.

Motorola formally announced the MPx220's US availability on Friday, 15 October, but it actually began to appear in Best Buy stores the previous weekend, seven days ahead of schedule.

Details of the MPx220, the successor to the MPx200, emerged in June 2004 when a preliminary press release was published on Motorola's web site. By the time the handset was formally unveiled, in July, the release date had been put back from Q3 to Q4.

As previously reported, the handset features a 176 x 220, 270,000-colour display and an integrated 1.23 megapixel digicam with a 3x digital zoom and flash. It will offer quad-band support - 850, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz - GSM and GPRS connectivity.

The handset supports Bluetooth, and includes 64MB of Flash ROM. There's a Mini SD card slot capable of taking a 512MB memory card. The unit weighs 113g and measures 8.9 x 4.8 x 2.7cm. Its design is broadly similar to that of the 200, but the screen hinge is mounted further down the keypad half of the clamshell device. The 220 will be offered in silver and black colour schemes.

In the US, the MPx220 is initally shipping for connection to the Cingular network. The handset's UK networks have not been named, though sources close to Orange, for one, say that service provider is evaluating the MPx220, alongside Motorola's slimline, titanium-cased V3. The handset is also likely to be made available in a SIM-free form. ®